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The Authority of the Church in the World: A Lutheran Perspective

This essay is slightly revised from a paper delivered at a
meeting of the Faith and Order Commission, National Council of
Churches of Christ in the USA, St. Louis, Missouri, October 11,
2002.

[1] According to current statistics, there are over 65 million
Lutherans in the world. Most of these (61.7 million) are members of
churches belonging to the Lutheran World Federation, "a global
communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition" that was
founded in 1947. The LWF has 136 member churches within 75
countries around the globe.1

[2] The history of the Lutheran Church, in its own
self-understanding, begins in the apostolic era, but its own
separate identity began as a reforming movement within the western
Church that was initiated on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther
attached the Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church
(Schlosskirche) in Wittenberg, Germany. A church is considered
Lutheran if it affirms the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of 1530 as
its primary confessional document, conferring upon it an
authoritative place after the Scriptures,2 the ancient ecumenical
creeds, and doctrinal positions that prevailed in ancient councils
(e.g., the Council of Chalcedon on the nature of Christ). Typically
Lutheran churches also affirm the other documents contained in the
Book of Concord, particularly Luther's Small Catechism,
but they give differing degrees of authority to
them.3 The
Lutheran churches have typically maintained much of their
pre-Reformation inheritance, including the mass (reformed according
to Reformation principles) and various rites and practices (e.g.,
the church year, confirmation, vestments, and traditional
architecture). Due to various historical developments, such as
Rationalism and Pietism, however, some of the early Reformation
traditions have been lost. Today there are movements in various
directions. Some Lutherans seek to recover traditions and practices
from the Reformation era (e.g., weekly Eucharist, the sign of the
cross, and the use of eucharistic vestments), while others seek a
more general, less confessional and even non-denominational,
Protestant identity.

[3] There are over 8.5 million Lutherans in North
America.4 Most
Lutherans in the U.S. belong to congregations of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (over 5.1 baptized members) or the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (over 2.6 baptized members). Still
others belong to smaller denominations.5 The Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Canada (also an LWF member church) has 189,654 baptized
members.

[4] The only Lutheran denomination in the U.S. that has full
membership in the LWF, the NCCCUSA, and the WCC is the
ELCA.6 Because
that is so, and considering the purpose of this essay, what follows
will be limited in such a way that "to be fair to other Lutheran
churches" the topic is in fact "The Authority of the Church in the
World: An ELCA Perspective."

[5] The ELCA came into being officially on January 1, 1988, as a
result of the merger of three predecessor Lutheran churches: The
American Lutheran Church, the Association of Evangelical Lutheran
Churches, and the Lutheran Church in America. The ALC and LCA had
been formed in 1960 and 1962, respectively, from the merger of
other predecessors associated with various ethnic
traditions.7
The AELC, formed in 1976, consisted of congregations that had left
the LC-MS in consequence of changes within that body. The history
of the ELCA can be traced back through its predecessors to the
colonial era in the U.S. Its members belong to over 10,800
congregations located within 65 synods. One of the synods (Slovak
Zion) is ethnically based, but the other 64 are geographical. The
ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church, USA, the
Moravian Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the
Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ. At its
Churchwide Assembly in 2001 it voted to accept an invitation to be
a "partner in mission and dialogue" with Churches Uniting in
Christ.

Formal Structures

[6] The "Constitution, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions" of
the ELCA can be found on the internet (www.elca.org). For the sake
of brevity in this essay, references to actual sections and full
quotations of those documents will be few, since they can be found
easily. Otherwise they will be indicated by their respective
numbers within parentheses.

[7] After affirming that the highest authority in the church
belongs to Christ, the Constitution spells out the three
"expressions" of the ELCA. Those are congregations, synods, and the
churchwide organization. These are interdependent, and all share
the same confession of faith.

[8] The highest "legislative authority" within the ELCA is the
Churchwide Assembly (12.11). The Churchwide Assembly meets
biennially for several days. It is composed of "voting members" who
are elected by the various synods in assembly. Each synod elects
one person for every 6,500 baptized members within the synod and
one person for every 50 congregations. The synod bishops and
officers of the church are _ex officio_ voting members with voice
and vote at the Churchwide Assembly. Since the beginning of the
ELCA, there have been between 1000 and 1100 voting members at each
Churchwide Assembly.

[9] The ELCA churchwide organization has four officers. These
are the Presiding Bishop, the Vice President, the Secretary, and
the Treasurer. The Vice President (who must be a layperson) serves
as Chair of the Church Council. All four officers have six-year
terms (renewable). The Treasurer is elected by the Church Council;
the other three by the Churchwide Assembly. The Church Council
meets at least twice a year and serves as the interim legislative
authority between Churchwide Assemblies. It consists of 33 members
elected at the Churchwide Assembly for a six-year term (not
renewable), plus the four churchwide officers. It also has advisory
members (voice but not vote); these are nine synodical bishops and
two youth. Each synod has a synodical bishop, elected for a
six-year term. In some synods there are no restrictions (term
limits) for reelection; in others there may be restrictions (such
as two terms). The synodical bishops, the Presiding Bishop, and the
Secretary of the Church are members of the Conference of Bishops.
This body, which meets at least twice a year, may make
recommendations to the Presiding Bishop and to the Church
Council.

[10] The ELCA has Offices, Departments, Divisions, and
Commissions to carry out its work. The Division for Church in
Society is a major unit for the expression of the church's
authority in the world:

This division shall assist
this church to discern, understand, and respond to the needs of
human beings, communities, society, and the whole creation through
direct human services and through addressing systems, structures,
and policies of society, seeking to promote justice, peace, and the
care of the earth. (16.11.E97)

[11] Over the years the Division for Church in Society has
produced social statements, messages, studies, resolutions on
social issues for action by the Church Council (and through the
Council to the Churchwide Assembly), and policy recommendations for
the social ministry activities of the church. The Division
maintains offices in both Washington and New York to represent the
ELCA in the U.S government, foreign governments, and in the United
Nations.

Lutherans in the Mix

[12] Lutheranism is quickly characterized by the great "solas"
of its tradition (sola fidei, sola gratia, and sola
scriptura), by its insistence upon the distinction (but not
separation) between law and gospel, its emphasis on justification,
its lesser-known capax formula (finitum capax infititi,
"the finite is capable [of bearing] the infinite"), its
sixteenth-century confessions, and its doctrine of the two
kingdoms.

[13] In regard to its social witness the ELCA affirms that the
Scriptures are normative, but it does not exclude the use of other
sources. The sola scriptura principle does not exclude the use of
other resources, for that principle had a very limited use in the
Reformation era, i.e., a reforming one. That was to oppose
ecclesiastical traditions that are contrary to the teachings of the
Scriptures. According to Lutheran teaching and practice, the
Scriptures must be read, interpreted, and applied in light of the
gospel of Christ. That viewpoint has been formulated in the slogan
often attributed to Luther: "Scripture is the cradle in which the
Christ child lies."8 It is recognized that the
Scriptures themselves, as well as their particular teachings, are
variegated in authority. For Luther, as well as for the Lutheran
tradition, whatever in Scripture presents and urges Christ upon us
is apostolic and authoritative; the rest is less so.9

[14] In addition to Scripture, Lutherans draw upon tradition
(creeds and confessions) and human reasoning in their social
witness. Although Lutherans have been wary of "experience" (at
least private experience) as a source for theological and ethical
reflection, they have surely made use of it. Scripture, tradition,
and reason alone, for example, can hardly have been the only
sources in the decision of ELCA predecessor churches to ordain
women in 1970 or in ELCA social statements concerning capital
punishment, economic life, church-state relationships, and more.
The experience of Lutherans (both as individuals and corporately)
in modern American life has been a resource for theological
andethical reflection.10

[15] Lutherans have three distinct (not necessarily unique)
emphases to bring to the discussion of the authority of the church
in the world. The three are closely related to one another. The
first arises out of what has just been said concerning the use of
theological resources. In regard to social issues, Lutherans do not
ask solely, or even first of all, "What does the Bible say on
this?" In keeping with the Scriptures and the confessions alike,
Christians should make use of all the resources of wisdom,
observation, and reason available in order to discern the present
situation being addressed, and proceed with their use along with
the teachings of the Scriptures and the confessions in the reaching
of conclusions. There is a strong tradition within Lutheranism to
ask and to insist upon answers to the questions: What is good for
the neighbor? What is good for society? What builds up
community?

[16] A second emphasis within Lutheranism is that a distinction
must be maintained between law and gospel. According to Lutheran
teaching, the Word of God comes to us as both law and gospel. If
the distinction is not maintained, the gospel can be lost in favor
of legalism, on the one hand; or on the other hand, the law can
lose its power to create and sustain the common good in society.
The law has two main uses.11 The "first use" (sometimes
called the "political use") "the only one relevant for our
discussion here" has to do with God's ordering of society in order
to maintain discipline and to protect the community from those who
would cause harm to it. That will mean that actual laws in society
exist for the good of all, and therefore they are not immutable.
Actual laws existing in Luther's day and place that maintained a
class society, for example, and presupposed a society in which all
were baptized Christians have passed from the scene in modern
Germany and are not a part of modern American civil law. In
Lutheran thinking, law is good and necessary, but it is not
immutable (even if it is biblical),12 and it must seek to serve
the common good.

[17] A third, related emphasis within Lutheranism is the
doctrine of the two kingdoms (or realms). The idea here is that God
rules in two distinct but related ways. In the temporal realm of
human existence (the "kingdom on the left") God is active through
the law to create and to maintain order, peace, and justice and to
oppose violence and injustice. Law, good government, judicial
systems, and armed forces are all instruments of God for achieving
those ends. In the spiritual realm of human existence (the "kingdom
on the right"), however, God wills that all people know the divine
love, grace, and eternal promises given in Christ. The gospel, the
church, and the ministry of Word and Sacrament are the instruments
for those ends.

[18] The strengths, weaknesses, and adequacy of the doctrine of
the two kingdoms have been debated since the Reformation, not least
by Lutherans themselves.13 At its worst it has led to
the separation of religion from politics. In practice the doctrine
has sometimes given to the state a political autonomy not intended,
tolerating injustices and tyranny - precisely the opposite of what
was intended! The two kingdoms ethic is often cited as the basis
for "Lutheran quietism."

[19] The world inhabited by Lutherans today is very different
from that of the sixteenth-century Reformation. For example, the
distinction between those who govern and those who are governed no
longer exists as it did, particularly in a modern democracy.
Moreover, living in a time and place where the Christian faith was
deeply rooted, Luther assumed that the civil authorities would
protect the church so that the gospel could be preached. That
cannot be presumed in every part of the globe that Christians
inhabit today. In fact, the freedom to worship and to preach the
gospel may be a human rights issue in some countries; and if and
when that is so, persons from other countries will then have to
insist upon the human rights of those victimized.

[20] In spite of its problems, the doctrine of the two kingdoms
continues to have importance in Lutheran social thought. Perhaps
the main point to this would be that Lutherans are able to
participate fully in a pluralistic society, believing that others
"persons of other denominations, religions, and even persons of no
religious commitments" who work for the common good are serving God
and God's "kingdom on the left." Lutherans are also therefore able
to recognize and accept ambiguity and differing points of view when
they are based on reason, evidence, and deliberation. Christian
faith does of course have a role to play in the shaping of the
convictions and motivations of both the individual Christian and
the church in society. The reading of Scripture, the proclamation
of the Word (both law and gospel), and the work of the Spirit in
the lives of Christians awaken them to the needs of their neighbor
and the needs of society. But there is not always a distinct
"Christian" answer to social issues. The means by which human needs
are to be met are matters of reason, law, and justice.

[21] One way that Lutherans in the ELCA have come to speak of
"the authority of the church in the world" that reflects both the
Lutheran tradition and modern social and political realities is
spelled out in the ELCA Constitution under the section on the
Purpose of the Church. That is that the ELCA pledges itself to
"work with civil authorities in areas of mutual endeavor,
maintaining institutional separation of church and state in a
relation of functional interaction" (4.03.n). The words
"institutional separation" and "functional interaction" hold in
tension some basic Lutheran convictions about the nature of the
church, the purposes of and validity of the state, the necessity of
the church to have a voice in society, the possibility of its being
able to learn from secular sources, and an awareness of its calling
to promote civil life under the reign of God for all of God's
children.

End Notes

1 Statistics are taken from Lutheran World Information
online (September 17, 2002). This and other publications can be
accessed through the website of the Lutheran World Federation (www.lutheranworld.org).

3 The Constitution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America, for example, speaks of the "Unaltered Augsburg Confession
as a true witness to the Gospel, acknowledging as one with it in
faith and doctrine all churches that likewise accept the teachings
of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession" but accepts other
confessional writings in the Book of Concord as "as further valid
interpretations of the faith of the Church" (2.05-2.06). The
standard edition of the confessional documents in use is The Book
of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed.
Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2000).

4 Statistics in this paragraph are from Lutheran World
Information online (August 7, 2002). For a comprehensive history,
cf. The Lutherans in North America, ed. E. Clifford Nelson
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).

5 Twelve "Lutheran Bodies" of the U.S. are listed in The
Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 2001, ed. Eileen Lindner
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), 163. Among these are the
American Association of Lutheran Churches, the Apostolic Lutheran
Church of America, the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations,
the Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America, the Evangelical
Lutheran Synod, the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, the
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and others.

6 The ELCA belongs to all three groups. It should be
added, however, that the (5000 member) Lithuanian Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Diaspora, whose bishop resides in Oak Park,
Illinois, is also a member of the LWF.

7 The ethnic associations are generalizations. In any
case, the ALC of 1960 was a merger of the former ALC of 1930
(German), the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian), and the
United Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish); the Lutheran Free
Church (Norwegian) joined the ALC in 1963. The LCA was a merger of
the former American Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish), the
Augustana Lutheran Church (Swedish), the Suomi Lutheran Church
(Finnish), and the United Lutheran Church in America (German,
Icelandic, and Slovak).

9 Martin Luther, Preface to the Epistles of St. James and
St. Jude, LW 35:396: "All the genuine sacred books agree in this,
that all of them preach and inculcate [treiben] Christ"."Whatever
does not teach Christ is not yet apostolic, even though St. Peter
or St. Paul does the teaching."

10 The use of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience
as sources for authority is often called the "Wesleyan
Quadrilateral." One might wonder whether it has become virtually
universal among major Christian denominations. A major statement of
it (critiqued by others) is that of Albert C. Outler, "The Wesleyan
Quadrilateral In John Wesley," Doctrine and Theology in the United
Methodist Church, ed. Thomas A. Langford (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 1991), 75-88.

11 The so-called "third use" of the law (as a guide for
the reborn) has been debated since the Reformation era, but ELCA
theologians will typically say that there is no material
distinction between it and the first use. The "second use" is to
accuse persons, make them aware of the sin in their lives, and
thereby drive them to Christ in repentance.

12 An important essay on this is by Martin Luther, "How
Christians Should Regard Moses," Luther"s Works, 35.155-174.

13 One example is that of Eric W. Gritsch and Robert O.
Jenson, Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional
Writings (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 179-90.

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